The RocKwiz Team is assembling a cavalcade of stars for 3 special live shows to celebrate the music of Australia's most
famous songwriting and production team.
Tickets go on sale on Monday 23 September.
Harry
Vanda and George
Young are responsible for writing and producing some of Australia’s biggest
hits: Friday On My Mind, Good Times, Love
Is In The Air, Hey St Peter, St Louis, Walking In The Rain, Evie (Parts 1, 2
and 3) and the list goes on and on and on. These songs have become part of
our pop history and some of them became international hits for artists like Grace Jones and The Bay City Rollers. As
producers, Vanda and Young shaped
the sound of Aussie Pub Rock, producing and guiding bands like The Angels, Rose Tattoo, Choirboys and AC/DC no less!
Here are some clips from previous RocKwiz LIVE shows where we have covered Vanda and Young songs.
Harry
Vanda and George
Young met
at the Villawood Migrant Hostel in Sydney in 1964. They
were founding members of The Easybeats,
with Vanda on lead guitar and
backing vocals and Young on rhythm
guitar and backing vocals, along with Stevie
Wright, Dick Diamond and Gordon
Fleet. Vanda and Young co-wrote
many of The Easybeats hits and
produced the group from 1967.
After The
Easybeats disbanded in 1969, Vanda
and Young were songwriters and producers for their own projects such as The Marcus Hook Roll Band, Haffey's Whiskey
Sour and Flash and the Pan. They
produced the first 6 albums for AC/DC
(George is the older brother of AC/DC’s Angus and Malcolm Young) and were staff
producers for Albert Productions
from 1973, writing and producing Stevie
Wright’s #1 single Evie (Parts 1, 2 and
3), along with Ted Mulry, Rose
Tattoo, William Shakespeare and The
Angels. They wrote and produced hits for John Paul Young including I
Hate the Music, Yesterday’s Hero and the international smash hit, Love Is In The Air.
In 1988 Harry and George were inducted into the
inaugural ARIA Hall of Fame and in
2001 the Australasian Performing Right
Association surveyed 100 music industry personalities and declared ‘Friday On
My Mind’ the best Australian song of all time.
As Glenn A. Baker says “Harry and George
transcended pop stardom to become one of the most impressive and important
creative units of the rock era: vital writers, producers and conceptualists …
exhilarating song and sound craftsmen”.
As John Tait remarks in his book Vanda and Young, Inside Australia’s Hit
Factory … “Australian Musician Magazine dedicated it’s June 2007 issue to
the 50 most significant moments in Australian pop rock history … ranked at
number one, ahead of Countdown, the Sunbury Rock festivals, The Beatles
Australian tour and other critical developments in Australian music, was the
day that Dutch teenager Harry Vanda met Scottish teenager George Young at the
Villawood Migrant Hostel in Sydney. The article argued that without this
partnership … “there would not have been an Easybeats as we know them, possibly
no Stevie Wright solo career, certainly not the Albert productions that made
AC/DC a huge success and none of those classic Countdown songs by artists such
as John Paul Young, William Shakespeare, Cheetah etc, as well as their own hits
under the Flash and The Pan name.
ROCKWIZ
SALUTES VANDA AND YOUNG will feature an eclectic mix
of Australian heritage artists alongside contemporary stars, performing songs
written, played or produced by Vanda and
Young, to create an un-missable live event.
ROCKWIZ
SALUTES VANDA AND YOUNG will of course be hosted by
the wonderful Julia Zemiro and
wrangled and adjudicated by Brian
Nankervis. The legendary RocKwiz
Orkestra; James Black, Peter
Luscombe and Mark Ferrie will
back the artists and play those Million Dollar Riffs and Australia’s favourite
roadie, Dugald, will hold up the
scores and tune the guitars.
And of course … it wouldn’t be a RocKwiz show
without contestants being drawn from the audience to hit those buzzers and
answer curly questions. It could be you, up there on stage!
ROCKWIZ SALUTES VANDA AND YOUNG
